by Kat King, AHDI-F
AHDI-West President-Elect

I have been honored to represent our region and our association on several trips to Washington, DC. Some of those visits included face-to-face conversations with our senators or congressmen, but we generally share our message with their healthcare aides. These individuals have become well-versed in our industry over the past few years, showing the inroads and impact we are having at the federal level.

I have served on the AHDI Legislative Issues Group, and have become familiar with the information we need to convey to our legislators; EHR adoption including the narrative report (the patient’s full story), health information exchange, conversion of narrative text into codified data, and the need for workforce development funding. They are not difficult messages to understand, but they won’t be included in legislation unless WE convey the messages to our legislators!

Unfortunately, I am not able to make the trek to DC this year due to my school schedule, but the great thing is that legislators come “home” and hold town hall meetings around their region. After 5 trips to DC, there was one senator whose schedule could not permit a personal visit. No problem! I saw the notice on my local community college home page that Senator Ron Wyden (Oregon) was scheduled to hold a town hall meeting at my college. Oh, I am so there!! Armed with a brief “talking point” document and camera, I attended the town hall meeting. In the midst of Korean War veterans and citizens concerned about the various environmental topics, I was prepared to deliver a different message. Senator Wyden assured the crowd he was not going to stand up and have us listen to him for the next 90 minutes, but he wanted to hear from us.

I grasped my little ticket firmly (the one they give you if you wish to ask a question), waiting for my number to be called….like a raffle drawing, but the 90 minutes flew by and I was not called upon. Hey, no worries. I’ll go up to him and introduce myself. While waiting for pictures to be taken with the Korean War veterans, I introduced myself to our college president, who was the emcee for the meeting. After hearing my message, he insisted on introducing me to Senator Wyden. I did have the privilege of sharing our concerns with the senator. The fact I had tried to meet with him on 5 different occasions in DC did not go unnoticed. He asked his local aide to forward to him all the information I provided and asked her to make sure they make time on his schedule in DC when our delegation comes to visit in May.Of course, I asked to have a picture taken with him. Wouldn’t you know, my camera battery died at that moment! The campus photographer offered to take our picture, but later realized his SD (memory) card was not in the camera. (I forgave him!) I’m sending Senator Wyden a picture of me along with the newly-published talking points. The important thing is that I did my part to convey the messages. On top of that, I have been invited by the president of Rogue Community College to serve on his legislative committee!!

Do you believe an accurate and complete patient’s story in

narrative form is critical to patient care?

Plan to attend the Legislative Leader Training Webinars

• Learn to share your experiences as an MT, healthcare documentation professional, with a broader audience
• Explore ways to organize small groups of advocates in your local area
• Spread the word about the importance of healthcare documentation to patient safety
• Be a voice for all patients

Scott Shalett of the Dewey Square Group along with Linda Giles from the Legislative Issues Group will be on hand to discuss what a volunteer can expect should they decide to become a legislative leader, the incentives for participation, and the national AHDI/MTIA advocacy campaign.

This webinar is an ideal opportunity for those who are interested in promoting our profession, organizing others to do the same, and for those who want to learn more about the national advocacy efforts of AHDI/MTIA and why all efforts are so critical to the future of our industry and high quality patient care.

Become part of the communication hub to bring the national AHDI/MTIA advocacy campaign to your local area.

REGISTER FOR FEBRUARY 9 WEBINAR

Thank you for your signatures!!

The petition letter signing has closed.  Our delegation of legislative leaders from across the country are preparing to meet with dozens of legislators on Capitol Hill next week.  Your signatures will be distributed with our packets of information.  Your voice will be heard.

If you have not done so already, please read this letter.

AHDI/CDIA staff, volunteers, and Dewey Square Group thank you for your support in signing our petition letter!!

United States Senate and House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator OR Representative:

We thank you for considering the critical role the healthcare documentation sector continues to play with the adoption of the Electronic Health Record (EHR).  We are constituents from a wide variety of congressional districts across the nation, members of the healthcare documentation community, represented by the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) and/or the Clinical Documentation Industry Association (CDIA) (formerly known as MTIA).

Regardless of the method used to capture healthcare information, medical transcriptionists serve as an “essential set of eyes” to ensure the quality, accuracy, and consistency of patient records. As EHRs become more common, error rates could put patients at greater risk. By employing more documentation professionals more jobs will be created while, at the same time, reducing medical errors in the healthcare record.

Our Value Proposition:
Medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) and medical transcriptionists (MTs) are valuable resources to health care providers and the use of electronic health records (EHRs) in four key areas:

I. Efficiency: We enable dictation, which is the most efficient way for healthcare providers to document patient care.

II. Clarity: We produce narrative notes that tell a patient’s full story and enhance clinical decision making.

III. Usability: We enable meaningful use of EHRs in two key areas: interoperability and quality measures.

IV. Accuracy: We find and correct documentation errors at the genesis of the documentation process, providing 98%+ accuracy of clinical information

Benefits of Medical Transcription within the Patient-Care Cycle:

• Our services make efficient use of physician time. (We keep doctors from becoming data entry clerks.)
• We preserve face-to-face interactions between physician and patient. (Physicians can focus on the patient, not the computer screen.)
• We ensure the quality and validity of clinical data going into an EHR. (Providing clinical documentation authentication support.)
• We promote information sharing among caregivers in a secure environment. (Every day we route readable patient notes among physicians and hospitals.)

We petition your continued support in these urgent times by communicating with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, seeking acknowledgment in regulations that the dictation-transcription process and structured narrative reports are recognized as vital elements of electronic health records (EHR), are included in the definition of “meaningful use”, and recognized as essential for ensuring patient safety.

If you or your staff has any questions or need additional information, please contact Andrew Wolf, AHDI staff liaison to the Legislative Issues Group at 800-982-2182 ext. 2452 or by email: awolf@ahdionline.org.  Your consideration, time, and support are appreciated by us all.

Sincerely,

On Monday, March 15, AHDI and MTIA submitted an official comment to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONCHIT) on the proposed regulations for “meaningful use” and EHR certification. In addition, over 75 AHDI and MTIA members submitted comments. These comments have helped set the stage for the messaging we will take to the Hill, calling for CMS and ONCHIT to explicitly recognize in the regulations that the dictation-transcription process is a viable method of data capture that can be used to achieve “meaningful use.” To read the official AHDI-MTIA comment, click here.

We are excited to announce that DSG has secured a room on Capitol Hill that we will be able to use for a briefing and orientation on the morning of Wednesday, March 24, before meeting with legislators. Members also will have access to the room throughout the entire day.

For anyone interested in attending the AHDI national board of directors meeting, it will take place on Tuesday, March 23, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Advocacy Summit 2010 host hotel, the Marriott Crystal City in the Potomac Ballroom, Salon F. The meeting room will have open gallery seating for approximately 20 people.

We encourage you to come to Advocacy Summit and to ask your colleagues to do the same, as this is a critical time for defining our value proposition. If you do come, we will be sure that your experience is meaningful and impactful. Click here to learn more about Advocacy Summit. If you have any questions concerning attending Advocacy Summit or anything else, please contact AHDI/MTIA staff member Greg Doggett (gdoggett@ahdionline.org, 859-512-3284).

Advocacy Summit

We need your letters!

The Advocacy Summit is a week away and there is a final push to submit letters to our legislators. Your voice with your perspective is extremely important right now. We need you to ask the federal government to acknowledge the medical transcription sector as a vital contributor to quality of care, patient safety, and successful EHR adoption.

Take a few minutes to download the

July 2009 Newsletter

July 2009 Newsletter

Re-print from OAMT Newsletter, Spring 2006 ~ 4 years later and still relevant.

ad•vo•ca•cy (n.) The act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy; active support.

It’s 2 a.m. and I know I’m asleep, but I hear a voice nearby…someone gently saying, “I’m going to blow your brains out.” I’m so tired, but the voice inside me is telling me to wake up…you need to wake up…I know you have been up for 72 hours, but WAKE UP!!! I hear it again…”I’m so sorry, but…” the pillow comes flying off of my head…the one I was using to shield all the lights and sounds of being in a hospital room. Then I realize the voice is the phlebotomist hovering over my sister’s arm, attempting to draw blood for her 6-hr PTT. “What did you say? What’s going on?” I asked. “I’m going to blow her veins out if I keep trying.” Oh, veins, NOT brains!!! Super patient advocate reporting for duty! “Okay, explain to me what is going on and what are the options?” He gently says we can try different approaches, including a PICC line, but someone needs to tell the doctor to order something. “Aren’t you going to speak to him?” I asked. “No, you need to tell the nurse this is what you want and they can talk to the doctor.” “How would I know to suggest this if you had not recommended it? Why is it up to me to tell the nurse to relay this information to the doctor? You’re the professional here.” “No ma’am, I’m just a phlebotomist” he responds. “You are not JUST a phlebotomist. You are the person responsible for getting enough blood out of my sister so they can run the PTT to determine if the heparin drip is dissolving the massive PEs in her lungs. Tell me what I need to do and I will do it!”

Flash back a month, my sister is having a BE to determine if there is a blockage in her colon. She has a reaction to the contrast with pain, nausea and vomiting so severe I am called into the x-ray suite to help her. Finding her hyperventilating, half-naked in a tiny restroom, I ask for some blankets, washcloths, grab a chair, and I started Lamaze breathing (hey, whatever works). After 2 hours, I ask the x-ray tech to please do something. She tells me “I’m just an x-ray tech. There’s nothing I can do.” My immediate response, “Well, I’m a medical transcriptionist and there’s a LOT I can do! Get her doctor on the phone, get me some fresh towels, and find a room for her!!” Within 30 minutes we had her in a room, appropriately medicated, and 7 hours later she is rehydrated and able to go home.

Flash back 5 months (November 2005). I went into caregiver mode while my 56-year-old sister and her husband lived with us during her recuperation following a partial colectomy with loop ileostomy bypass. I came to know everything about her I&Os, every wince, when she was in pain, if her stoma was inflamed, what is a new “normal” and what is not. Four months later she should have had her takedown procedure, be back home and working again. Instead, this viable, strong-willed, energetic production manager over dozens of workers, is back in the hospital for a revision colectomy for severe diverticulitis, fistula and stricture. This was her second surgery and 4th time under general anesthesia since November, with a couple colonoscopies in between to assess the situation. Instead, she has SOB, pelvic and back pain, fevers, and on a few occasions, pain and swelling in her knee. I relayed this info to her doctor, she spoke to him about, and even at the second preop she made them aware of it. Nonetheless, they are proceeding with another procedure. I arrive at the hospital just as she is being prepped and they rush me though as she wants to see me. As I go into the preop area, she says to me, “Oh good, there’s my advocate.” I give her a kiss and tell her I’m right here as she drifts off to sleep. They went forward with the 6-hour procedure, 3 transfusions, and one week postop she still has a heart rate of 110-120, temp of 101, and O2 saturation at 94% with oxygen and 83% on room air. They were going to discharge her when suddenly the night before her heart rate soared to 204. They figured it was equipment malfunction as it was back to 115 when checked manually. They assumed it was anxiety about being discharged and gave her a sleeping pill. This is despite her telling the nurse her heart was pounding so fast and hard it felt like it was going to pop out of her chest. This entire time I am home with a cold, unable to hover like I had for so many months. Then I get the call. Her nurse tells me, “your sister has massive pulmonary emboli in her lungs, which we found on CT chest. We are starting aggressive measures to dissolve these as quickly as possible.” PE…no two letters in the alphabet grab my attention more than these…stealth, unpredictable killers. I start asking questions again. What does this mean? What can it do? What are our options? Then she puts my sister on the phone. Her breathing is labored and she asks, “Kathleen, what does this mean? I don’t understand what they are saying. What is going to happen? I’m so confused.” How do you tell your big sister over the telephone she has a condition that has been present for weeks/months and could be fatal, but that I will do everything in my power to not let that happen? I fly into advocate mode once again. I throw some things in a bag, grab my laptop and head to the hospital, exclaiming “I’m not leaving until she leaves!” It’s her birthday and friends have stopped by to give their best wishes, but with looks of absolute fear on all their faces when I walked into the hospital. Do something, they say. Don’t let this happen to her. Giving her a gentle kiss, wishing her happy birthday, and whispering to her that her advocate is here…I go off to introduce myself to her nurses, informing them I am a medical transcriptionist, HIPAA compliancy officer for my company and President of the Oregon’s association for medical transcription, and thus, I would like to obtain the necessary release of information forms, and requested a house supervisor contact me about reviewing her records since her admission. (I had her obtain her records from all the previous visits prior to this admission, only to find the “PROCEDURE PERFORMED” section of her November operative report had a big blank where the MT could not understand the dictation…very appropriate, better to put a blank than guess, but the doctor electronically signed the report without filling in this all-important section!) Over the course of the next 3 days no one followed through on that request, IVs ran dry, meals were not delivered, pain medications were delayed sending her into a pain level of 10/10, and my heart ached…and all this happening with me right there. This should not be happening…someone should be reading the records we so carefully transcribe. Someone should be paying attention to the details. My career-long mantra has been “accurate and timely documentation for continuity of care.” Why isn’t anyone reading it? Why aren’t they seeing the red flags? Why do I have to be demanding second opinions, consultations, diagnostic tests and attention to the details? Because, if I don’t, who will?

Just in case you are wondering how it all turned out…For her colectomy and once she was properly diagnosed with the PEs, my sister received outstanding care from some very attentive physicians, nurses and CNAs. We are all human, and we make mistakes, and this could have been a fatal one, but she is doing well, on appropriate treatment, looking forward, at last, to that elusive takedown procedure, and appreciating how fragile and precious life truly is.

If we don’t educate ourselves, know what the expectations are, what the options are, and speak up, the quality of healthcare is going to continue to decline. There are so many areas within our industry that need us to speak up about: credentialing, education, funding for externships, interoperable technology to ensure secure and available information, appropriate reimbursement rates, affordable health benefits for all Americans, and most importantly, quality health care.

Register now to discuss current events in healthcare, advocacy and board initiatives.

As of February 18, 2010, there are 52 registered for the Advocacy Summit to be held March 23 through 25, 2010, in Washington DC. Registration is at approximately the same point as was in 2009, and we eventually registered approximately 75; however, we are hoping with the help of MTIA partners that we will be able to reach the 100 registrant mark this year!

To help in the registration process, AHDI is offering the “deal of the month” of $15 off registration for this event. The “Early Bird” registration has ended, but the $15 discount will certainly help! If you are planning to attend Advocacy Day, it is urged that you register as soon as possible. Our Advocacy partners, Dewey Square Group, are helping us with appointments this year and in order for them to get the appointments set up in plenty of time, they need to know where we are all coming from and who we need to see. Please go to the AHDI site’s Advocacy Summit page and register as soon as possible!

This year’s official Advocacy Summit Hotel will be The Marriott Crystal City. It is located directly above a metro stop and a short ride from the capital building, making it an extremely convenient location for travel to and from Capitol Hill. The special room rate for the Summit attendees will be single and double occupancy rooms for $175 per night. Triple occupancy rooms will be $195 per night and quadruple occupancy rooms will be $215 per evening. Please keep these rates in mind while filling your room. Please remember that these special group rates expire on Monday, March 1, 2010, so if there is even the slightest chance you will be going, please make your reservations now. If you would like to save some expense and need to find a roommate (or roommates), please contact Miranda Youkhaneh of our awesome AHDI staff at will take care of this for you. A great way to network with your peers and make new friends!

Please also check out the 2010 Advocacy Summit User’s Guide by clicking here. The guide provides you with valuable travel information, a list of what to bring with you to Capitol Hill, tips for talking with legislators, and maps of the Washington, DC subway system and Capitol Hill. Business casual dress is encouraged and please wear your most comfortable shoes. Unless you can walk a 5k in heels, you will not be comfortable in anything less than a good pair of flat walking shoes! Appointments will be spread out and some can be at least a half hour away from each other, even walking at a fast pace!

Just in case you cannot be there in person at the Summit, there is still a great way to participate, right from your own home! Letter writing is a great way to be involved and support fellow members who will be on Capitol Hill. With the all the technological and regulatory changes facing the health IT sector in general and medical transcription in particular, it is particularly important this year that as many members as possible support our advocacy efforts to secure a viable and successful future for healthcare documentation professionals and medical transcription companies. Please click here for letter-writing instructions and a model letter.

Looking forward to seeing all of you at the Advocacy Summit this year!!! Let’s make this year our best year ever!

August 2009 Newsletter

August 2009 Newsletter